


echo

by manzana



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, in so much that it takes place solely in a dorm that likely takes place on a university campus, sort of idk, the most important AU aspect is that they don't know each other ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 10:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4517787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manzana/pseuds/manzana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>four restless nights of interrupted sleep later and rin finally finds relief at 2 AM in what he thought was an empty stairwell</p>
<p> </p>
<p>[AU, wherein the boys have never met before]</p>
            </blockquote>





	echo

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is an AU to the extent that the two have never met before, but as far as "university au," this is more like a "dorm au" in the sense that...that's all you need to know about it. it takes place in a dorm. it could be samezuka in an au where rin and sousuke were never childhood friends or something idk it doesn't matter really, the most important thing is that it takes place in a dorm and they're strangers and that's it. 
> 
> i looped these [[1](https://youtu.be/E5rh5OHeMkM) [2](https://youtu.be/vxJle69Ouws) [3](https://youtu.be/x6rNtBBspdo) [4](https://youtu.be/Ctx4BHYS3cI?t=22s)] videos while writing this so if you wanna set the ~atmosphere~ this is kind of the sound & effect i was going for 
> 
> cross posted from [my tumblr](http://princessbubblgum.tumblr.com/post/126068671864/echo)

For the fourth night in a row, Rin's eyes seize open to the sight of his open window. The moon is there to greet him once more, wide and round as ever, casting long bright beams between gently billowing curtains to the wall across. 

 

Groggy and disoriented, he squeezes his eyelids shut in a hopeless last-ditch effort, prays that maybe today this will be enough. He'd always been a light sleeper, long before his body randomly decided to torture him for several days in a row, but this was getting too ridiculous for him to chalk it up as anything more than an acute case of insomnia. Stress-induced maybe; he had swim tournaments awaiting him in the coming weeks and exams in between. He'd never been one to worry too much about things like this, but he supposed it was never too late for his nerves to finally catch up to him. 

 

 

Whatever it had been that had awoken him, it had wrenched him too suddenly from slumber, as it had for the last few nights, so that it was a fruitless venture to attempt to drift off so easily again.

 

 

He utters a soft, agonized groan and heaves himself up into a hunched-over sitting position, taking care to accommodate his sleeping roommate above his head by not jostling the bed frame too much as he does so. Long seconds pass while he blinks wearily into the dark of his room, yawns once or twice, rubs his tired eyes with a fist. There's a faint, annoying tingling resonating in the lower half of his body, one that makes itself more and more apparent the longer he sits here. With a sigh, he draws his blanket aside, swinging his legs over the edge of his bunk before padding quietly across the room and out the door.

 

 

It's eerily quiet when he steps out into the hallway, even moreso in the shared floor bathroom that he enters a moment later. The silence is so deafening that even the slightest shift in the fabric of his sweat pants sent sound reverberating off every wall like it was being projected by a loudspeaker. He's dimly aware of what hour it must be as he stands there relieving himself, one or two in the morning most likely. That was, after all, the general time that he'd awoken last night. And the night before. And the one before that. Why would tonight be any different? 

 

 

His head feels fuzzy just thinking about how many hours he had left before his alarm would sound, how much of that time was to soon be spent wide awake and miserable in bed. Day after day of swim practice was enough to exhaust anybody, but the sudden bout of sleeplessness certainly wasn't helping any. His body was already aching by day two; that he was still suffering two days later only meant the agony would quadruple.

 

 

This was going to hurt in the morning.

 

 

Bladder emptied and hands washed, he pushes past the door to the restroom and steps out into the hallway again, yawning loudly into his palm as he does. He begins his slow amble in the direction of his room, dragging his feet and idly scratching the back of his head, when, two doors away from his destination, he hears it.

 

 

Singing. 

 

 

Someone is singing. 

 

 

It's two in the morning and a voice carries down the hall from some indecipherable location, floating faint and ghostlike all around him. He actually has to halt mid-step to come to this realization, too disoriented to comprehend right away, but it's difficult to mistake the sound for anything else.

 

 

It's muffled and hollow, enough to tell that it's hidden behind a barrier, just indistinct enough to not make out words but also clearly melodious in rhythm. Rin almost thinks it a product of his sleep-deprived delirium, that his brain was inventing noises in an effort to further punish him, but the sound continues the longer he stands there listening. The voice is a low and rumbly echo, like a thunderstorm in the mountains, but gentle, soft, warm as well, trembling ever so slightly with each long note held. Rin has to strain to hear it, but it's joined by the faint lazy twangs of guitar strings as well, soft enough an accompaniment not to overpower the voice, but enough to lend its chords and enhance the singing. 

 

 

More out of curiosity now than his original intent of making it back into his room, Rin begins moving his feet again, and the closer he gets to the end of the hall, the louder the singing becomes. He's walking right past his dorm room door as he lets his ears guide him, and for a split second he reckons this is what a foolish reckless sailor might feel like, too drawn in by some siren song out on the ocean to do anything but chase it. 

 

 

His curiosity leads him to the very end of the hall, right outside the stairwell door, and it's here that the sound is strongest. This close he can practically  _feel_  the voice behind the wood of the door, can feel it flood his insides as it echos and reverberates off the few inches of wall separating them. Rin can only imagine how much more intense it might be to stand in the same room as this voice. The thought is enough to prickle goosebumps along his arms, even more so when he presses his ear against the wood of the door and the emotion in the singer's tone becomes that much more palpable. 

 

 

It's like dripping caramel, the sound. Sweet and slow and rich and so, so warm. Rin's hands clench against the door, his heart thundering loudly in his ears. He has to wrench his worn warm cheek from the wood, if only to draw his gaze to the small window inches away from where he'd been listening. 

 

 

Sitting hunched over on the top steps leading down to the floor below, right shoulder leaning heavily against the wall beside him, is a boy. 

 

 

Rin's vantage point offers no face to match the voice, no moving lips to give evidence that this sweet sound was coming from this source, but he's the only one in there and there's no question that this stairwell was producing the beautiful echoey reverb quality in the sound. From Rin's angle above and behind him, he can only see broad shoulders hidden beneath a thick blue hoodie, messy tufts of dark brown hair, fingers gently dancing along the neck of the guitar seated snug in his lap. 

 

 

The boy's hand movements against the strings are just as lazy as they sound, almost an afterthought, barely present in the song that his voice clearly carries. Combined with the voice, though, they pluck and strum carefully enough to produce a sound that's almost haunting in its beauty as it reverberates against the hollowed innards of the stairwell. 

 

 

Rin, transfixed by what he hears, feels his legs wobble, becomes more deftly aware of the fatigue plaguing his limbs. He shifts against the door, moving his back to the wall adjacent to it and sliding down against it until he's sitting. 

 

 

It's unclear how long he lingers there. He's too dazed by a combination of his awe and sleep deprivation to conceive of moving from this spot. All the while, he keeps a heavy, glazed-over gaze on the wall opposite him, and savors the sounds echoing from the wall beside him. The barrier muffles the noise just so that he feels partly unsatisfied, leaves him yearning just the tiniest bit more. Still, this is as close as he will allow himself without opening the stairwell door and alerting the other boy to his presence. His proximity alone allows him to listen in well enough anyway. 

 

 

The boy keeps his volume even, Rin notices, checked enough to not be heard by the entire hall. The longer Rin sits there, though, the more he begins to catch the way his tone will lilt, the long notes held a bit more boldly and emphatically, his voice raspy and cracking and wavering with raw emotion in a way that sears Rin to his core. It's the kind of sound that commands attention away from all other senses, that moves Rin to ease his eyes shut and sit there listening carefully, allowing it to wrap around him and swallow him whole. 

 

 

It's not until he feels his head nod painfully against the wall beside him that his eyes flutter open wildly, the softest gasp seizing in his chest. Whatever had happened had happened too quick for him to appreciate the moment, to comprehend just how long he'd dozed off. Awake again now, he finds himself suddenly exhausted in a way that was distinct from the aching fatigue he'd been suffering from these past few sleepless nights. 

 

 

Carefully, he places a heavy hand on the floor, heaving himself back up to his feet. He totters a bit where he's standing, takes shaky steps as he shuffles back in the direction of his dorm room. Behind him, growing fainter and fainter the farther away from it he walks, the singing carries on, and he commits the sound to memory, memorizes its warmth and its sweetness and intensity, and holds onto it all until he slides under his covers and curls up against one of his pillows.

 

 

He awakens the next morning from the soundest sleep he'd had in weeks. He feels refreshed, strangely, his joints and muscles relaxed and loose. He coasts through his whole day feeling rejuvenated and light, the faint memory of the night before haunting him like a dream. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some desperate, hopeful, optimistic part of Rin believed this one decent night of sleep might spell an end to his torture, that perhaps the universe had decided to finally take mercy on him and lift whatever curse had been unjustly placed on him. It's with an alarmingly blunt and crushing bout of disappointment that he instead wrenches awake the following night once again, gasping loud mouthfuls of air, chest heaving as if he'd just broke the surface of the water. His eyelids flutter briefly, startled, confused, before realization hits and he feels his stomach drop.

 

 

In a fit of desperation, he immediately drags his weary gaze from the wall beside him, staring at the door to his room as he fought to remember his encounter from the night before. It's difficult to recreate the sensation without the real thing right in front of him, difficult for his memory and imagination to produce the nuanced ways the sound enveloped him and seared him, difficult to delude himself into relaxing, clear his mind, let go and slip away. He's almost tempted to slide out of bed again, to wander the halls in search of the one thing that had managed to calm his mind enough to lull him out of consciousness, but he fights the urge, slams his eyes shut in order to better ignore the pathetic way he yearned to resort to this. It's silly. It's stupid. What kind of boy his age needed help getting to sleep at night from somebody else, let alone a stranger?

 

 

He instead falls back on tired and tried tactics to relax his mind, things he'd already attempted a hundred times but had no other choice but to try once more. When multiple playlists of soothing songs, nature sounds, and ambient noises blaring in his earbuds do nothing to keep his mind from buzzing, he marathons YouTube videos on his phone, reads online news articles on subjects he's not interested in, anything to bore his mind into semi-consciousness. He tosses into several positions in bed, engages in numerous breathing exercises, paces the room, even resorts to counting sheep, but it isn't until the sky begins to take on a the hazy periwinkle hue of the nearing sunrise that his body finally stops fighting him and he begins to feel himself dozing off.

 

 

He falls asleep an hour before his alarm is set to go off.

 

 

The drained feeling that ensues after that sleepless night is so painful that Rin actually dreads getting into bed the following evening, his stomach turning anxiously even as he slips under the covers. Sure enough, hours after nodding off, he startles awake again, this time his vision trained on his desk on the other side of the room. He tries all the same methods as the night before, all yielding similar results. This night, he only manages to clock in forty-five additional minutes of sleep before his alarm goes off.

 

 

In the night that follows, Rin gives up.

 

 

At two in the morning, three nights since his encounter in the stairwell, Rin awakens again, blinking furious and frustrated up at the underside of his roommate's bunk, willing away tears that he wants to shed. He casts a long contemplative glance at the door to his room, frowning hard at himself and the sorry state he'd found himself in. It's after a mental battle he wages with himself, weighing pros and cons and berating himself for being pathetic enough to resort to this, that he sighs a long drawn-out sigh, then shrugs out from beneath his comforter. 

 

 

He enters the hallway with open, attentive ears, quietly shutting his dorm room door behind him and resting his back against it, listening. His eyes flutter shut as he strains to hear something, anything, and when he's entreated to eerie silence, he lets his feet move on their own, desperately guiding him the few doors down the hall to the third floor stairwell. 

 

 

Silence continues and he feels his hope waning, disappointment crashing into him like a wave, even more so when he peeks in through the door's window and spies the empty flight of stairs beneath him. His hands clench at his sides, eyes slamming shut. He presses his forehead against the wood, as if that alone might produce what he wanted to see, that he might gaze a second time and find the boy where he'd been the night before. He feels crazy, like that previous night might have been a fluke, a dream, a product of his fatigue-addled mind. There was no boy, there was never a boy, maybe he hadn't even made it into the hallway that night at all, let alone heard anyone singing, who would even be awake at such an hour except for himself, how  could he be so _pathetic_  -- 

 

 

A single strum of guitar strings snaps him from his self-deprecating reverie with such force that he feels his stomach flip-flop in alarm. It's muffled, soft, a single note and nothing more, and he seizes his eyes open, sneaking another glance in the glass. 

 

 

The same boy from three nights ago is ascending from a lower landing, taking two or three steps and strumming abesntmindedly at the guitar slung across his chest. His focus is on the ground before him, granting Rin no vision of his features, before he turns and plops down onto the top step he was climbing. He toys with the tuning keys along the guitar's neck, plucking it here and there to adjust the sound until he's satisfied, and then he begins to play.

 

 

Relief floods Rin like warm sunlight, and he can feel a grin, involuntary and delirious, stretching across his lips. He gazes upon the boy only minutes longer, egging him on eagerly with his eyes, before the humming comes, a low soft sound that melts into gentle wordless crooning, and Rin can't help but sigh, his eyes sliding shut at the intensity of the sound. It's so sweet, the sweetest thing he'd ever heard in his life, and he's overwhelmed, that much more when words begin to pore forth, when the boy's voice carries louder, quivering and echoing in the same powerful and haunting way Rin remembered. He feels his knees goo weak, and he turns to press his back up against the door, sliding down until he's sitting. He leans his head back against the wood, embraces the hollowed acoustics of the singing boy beyond the barrier behind him. 

 

 

Rin sits there for what feels like an eternity, his body relaxing into jelly the longer he listens, and it's only when his yawns steadily increase and his eyes grow too heavy to stay open that he hobbles back to his feet and returns to his room. 

 

 

He's out like a light the minute his head hits the pillow. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rin returns the next night. And the next night. And the night after that. 

 

 

This lasts at least a week. Rin isn't even sure if his insomnia has really endured this long, isn't sure if perhaps he'd be able to get back to sleep on his own by now, but he hasn't dared try and test it.The minute his eyes slide open in the middle of the night, he's already drawing his blankets back, already has one foot on the floor. 

 

 

The stairwell boy is always there. Rin never knows when he arrives or when he leaves, has no idea where he comes from or where he goes, but when Rin shows up between the hours of two and three in the morning, he's already sitting in the stairwell, serenading no one. He plays a different array of songs every night, repeating certain songs sporadically and occasionally throwing in new ones into the mix. Rin was only familiar some of them, not all, but he becomes accustomed with this boy's repertoire very quickly. Rin's favorites are the ones he sings in English, if only because the boy clearly isn't proficient, if Rin's own fluency in the language made him any sort of expert. The boy does his best though, and Rin finds it charming how clearly he tries to mimic the Western singers he's attempting to emulate while still maintaining his own personal slow, lazy, quietly intense manner of singing. 

 

 

Rin warms the same spot of carpet by the stairwell door each night, resting his head against the wall beside him and smiling faintly as his body automatically relaxes to the sound. His desire for sleep outweighs any guilt he possesses for lingering here, but he does wonder sometimes how invasive he's being, wonders how earnestly and passionately this boy might perform if he knew someone was listening in this whole time. There was no other reason to pick a location like this and an hour like this if not for the sort of privacy it promised, and an audience, even an audience of one, might not be something he wanted. 

 

 

Rin is always gone before he gets a chance to find out, always stumbling back to his room just as he begins to nod off. He never knows how much longer the boy occupies the stairwell after he leaves, but there's something hauntingly beautiful about taking careful slow steps down a long empty hallway while the reverberating echoes of a voice so sweet and so entrancing trail along in his wake, enough that he doesn't care to know.

 

 

Rin could apologize for intruding, he supposed, when and if the two ever meet.

 

 

For now, he was content with this routine. He was content with the distance maintained, with the other boy remaining oblivious to his presence, to sitting in a hallway long enough to be lulled just beyond the brink of sleep. There was no reason, he saw, to rock the boat.

 

 

Several nights after the first encounter at the stairwell finds Rin in the hall restroom an hour or so before his first attempt at sleep. Night showers had long since been an established part of his evening routine, and being that he was the type to pride himself on cleanliness, he even sometimes opted for two showers a day as opposed to one. But at the very least, the evening shower was prioritized above all else, if only because it occurred not long after swim practice. It was ideal too, for the hour he chose often found him in a mostly empty bathroom, with no line to wait in, no lack of hot water, no outside noise to disrupt what few moments of solitude he could lay claim to while living in a dormitory. This part of his life had not changed, not even when his recent case of insomnia had hit him. 

 

 

After slipping into the last stall and drawing the curtains closed behind him, he cranks the hot water on high, stepping under the spray and tilting his head back with closed eyes. He stands there unmoving, for a long time, allowing the steam to billow around him, allowing the warm water to soothe his muscles and relax his nerves. He only cleans himself in the last few minutes of the shower, quickly scrubbing down his body and washing his hair until the water rinses clean around his feet. Even after he's finished, after he's turned the knob to off, he lingers in the shower stall, his head pressed against the cold tile wall, absorbing the heat of the room and willing his body to unwind. 

 

 

He's so lost in his own thoughts that when the bathroom door slams open he actually jumps, biting back a noise of alarm behind the hand he slaps to his mouth. He'd been planning to wrap his towel around his waist, to retreat back to his room to finish changing, but he waits for the new occupant to situate themselves in their stall instead of encountering them on the walk out. He listens for the clang of the curtain rings sliding against the curtain rod, the rustle of a towel being removed, the sudden loud hiss of the shower head coming to life and the ensuing patter of water hitting the floor. It seems safe enough to leave by this point, and Rin has his hand hovering just within reach of his curtain with all intent of drawing it back.

 

 

Instead, he pauses

 

 

There in the hollowed innards of the mostly empty bathroom, soft and low amid the raining shower water, is a voice humming.

 

 

Rin almost doesn't recognize it at first, unrestrained and unfiltered by walls like this, unaccompanied by guitar strings, but then the words start to come, in those long crooning quivering tones, and it's unmistakable who this is. How could it not be when Rin had practically memorized the sound of his voice? 

 

 

But while the sudden realization is what causes Rin to hesitate at first, what keeps his feet rooted to the floor is that fact that for the first time since encountering him at the stairwell, there is nothing separating Rin from the singing boy. There are shower walls between them yet, but they're in the same room for once, something Rin had yet to experience, and the effect renders Rin immobile, unwilling to make any movements that might alert the boy to his presence and incite him to stop. The empty bathroom offers the same hauntingly beautiful accoustic effects as the stairwell, but it's more intense like this, close enough that he can clearly hear every gentle trembling note, can practically see his lips as they shape the sounds of each word, can feel the reverberations of his voice bouncing off the bathroom walls and wrapping around him. 

 

 

Rin, his heart beating intensely in his chest, wonders fleetingly if you could fall in love with a person by the sound of their voice alone. He needs to press a hand against his mouth as he hears own breathing become heavier, so undone as he is by the experience. He feels every inch of himself unravel at the seams, the mix of atmosphere and sound and warm afterglow of his shower too powerful a combination to be occurring simultaneously. His eyes had long since slid shut, and he's convinced he could fall asleep just _standing_ there, his head pressed against the cold tile walls and his bent arms propping him up. He has to actively work to keep himself alert, to not slip too far away too fast.

 

 

The shower doesn't last long, or at least it doesn't feel that way. Rin lost track of time the moment the singing began, too absorbed in the sound to tell if he'd been in there for minutes or hours. The water shuts off, though the singing doesn't waver, in fact intensifies in the absence of the accompanying shower spray. As the boy dresses, his singing dissolves to an absentminded sort of humming, soft and waning, as if he's too self-aware. It's a strangely intimate sound, like Rin is listening to something private, something personal. The boy takes sound with him, his voice getting smaller as his footsteps retreat away from his shower stall, following him as he exits the bathroom and is abruptly cut off by the slamming door. 

 

 

Rin almost sobs at the loss. 

 

 

When he finally makes it back to his dorm room not long later, he nearly collapses onto his bed, curling up tight into his sheets the second he touches down. It's euphoric, how loose and blissed out he feels, and he knows this can't be the last of this, knows he's now grown addicted to the sensation. Desperation gets the better of him and he sets his mind on something daring, on a course of action that will probably seem ridiculous in the aftermath, but that he's too fiercely determined to make a reality. 

 

 

In seconds he's gone. For the first time in two weeks, he sleeps straight through the night.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rin keeps himself awake the following night, forgoing sleep altogether to watch his bedside clock. He doesn't know how long is long enough to wait, how early is too early or just enough, but by a quarter to one in the morning, he finally steals into the hall, heading for the stairwell door at the end. Despite the silence that pervaded through the hall, he mutters a hopeful plea to himself before peeking in through the door's window, and is relieved to find the stairwell empty. Carefully, he pushes the door open, the click of the door handle and squeal of the door hinges resounding loudly throughout the empty concrete innards of the stairwell. The door closes behind him just as deafeningly, the sound amplified a multitude over in the hollowed room.  The silence is thick, interrupted only by the patter of his bare feet as he darts quickly up to the set of stairs one floor above high enough so that when he sits, he's invisible to anyone exiting from the third floor door.  

 

 

Again he waits, his eyes closed and the back of his head resting against the cold cinderblock wall behind him. He doesn't check his phone or watch at all but he feels maybe an hour has passed, perhaps an hour and a half, before he hears the loud click of the door handle shoved open again. His eyes snap open as the door squeaks on its hinges, as it slides back into place. In the ensuing quiet there are soft footsteps padding along the stairs, a cough.  

 

 

He leans over where he sits, just enough to remain inconspicuous, just enough to peek between the bars of the stair railings. He watches the boy below take a few steps down from the third floor before situating himself on the same top step Rin had witnessed him occupy time and time again. Rin has a better vantage point of his face like this, better than he had before, but before he can look for too long, the boy tilts his head back a bit, and Rin has to withdraw quickly in order to avoid being seen. Rin settles back against the wall behind him, waiting, listening. There's only a brief pause before he hears the familiar absentminded strumming of the guitar, hears the gentle hum as the boy murmurs nothing in particular. Melody flows forth as his volume increases, as words start to form, and his voice carries upward to find Rin's ears. 

 

 

It's as lovely a sound as Rin hoped it might be, far more intense than the affect found in the bathroom. In here there's even less separating the two of them, and so the sound travels, filling the whole room, bouncing off the wall, coming at Rin from all sides. The reverb drums in his ears, soothing and rhythmic, and when the boy holds those long notes, the emotion in his tone is almost too much. Rin tightens his fingers where they sit in his lap, squeezes his eyes shut, feels tears blossom at the corners, so entranced and moved by the sound that his body reacts involuntarily.  

 

 

As he listens, Rin feels himself drift in and out of semi-consciousness, calm and utterly relaxed in a way that allows him to toe the line between awake and asleep with unhitched fluidity. His hands slacken in his lap and his head droops onto his shoulders as his body completely gives up the fight to stay alert, startling awake every so often when he feels himself begin to seriously nod off. After a while, he can even hear his own breathing pick up in his ears, labored and deep, and then he's so far gone that he gives up completely. 

 

 

In what feels like a blink, Rin awakens again, not by his own accord but from being suddenly jostled by a strong force gripping his shoulder and shaking. 

 

 

His eyes flutter open, too abruptly startled from sleep to focus properly on what was in front of him. His vision is hazy and even as he rubs the sleep from his eyes, he struggles to remember where he is, what he was doing, what was going on. His gaze eventually registers what's in front of him, the pair of narrowed teal eyes and furrowed brows, and in his confusion and alarm, Rin draws back, knocking the hand away where it's still gripping his shoulder and glancing around like a nervous animal. 

 

 

"Hey, hey, it's okay,  _relax_ ," he hears from the person before him. It's a voice that commands attention, deep and dark, and it forces Rin to snap around to stare at him. 

 

 

Groggy as he was, it only takes Rin a second to piece together that the person kneeling one step below him and staring up at him was the singing boy from the stairwell himself. He had never seen his face until just this moment, but he would recognize that voice anywhere. 

 

 

"Sorry to startle you," the boy continues, sounding genuinely apologetic. "You startled me too, though, so -- consider us even, I guess." 

 

 

Rin's mouth parts as he watches those lips move, hears the low voice that comes out, the soundtrack of his last fortnight suddenly so close and directed at him. He takes in an involuntary breath, rubs at his eye with his knuckle again as he draws his gaze away, and instead of anything else, mutters, "what time is it?" 

 

 

"Almost four." 

 

 

Rin's eyes widen.  _Three hours_  already? Surely he would have noticed by now, he couldn't have been sitting here  _that_  long unless -- unless he'd actually fallen asleep. 

 

 

"Oh, god," he groans, sliding a hand over his eyes. 

 

 

"What are you doing here," the boy speaks again after a moment, and Rin jumps, having forgotten he was still there. "Strange place to take a nap." 

 

 

Rin stiffens, hesitates, then slowly pulls his hand away from his face to peek down at the other boy. At some point he'd shifted to sit on the step a few down from the one Rin was seated on. His guitar, Rin notes in the corner of his eye, is abandoned one flight down. 

 

 

"I…" Rin begins. What could he say? How creepy would it be to confess that he was there to listen to him sing? 

 

 

In an effort to avoid the question, Rin frowns, tries to sound demanding when he throws a question of his own right back at him. "How did you even know I was here?" 

 

 

"I stopped playing for a second and heard you snore," the boy says with a crooked smirk, the faintest trace of a chuckle in his tone. "Deep sleep, then. Scared the hell out of me. Thought I was the only one in here." 

 

 

"I  _snored_?" Rin says, feeling heat rise into his cheeks. It was bad enough he had fallen asleep in here, he didn't need this too. He rubs painfully at the back of his neck, glancing away again and groaning in his humiliation. " _Embarrassing_ …" 

 

 

"Nah," the boy continues. "It was one of those, uh, cute breathy little snores some people are lucky to have. Maybe a bit of a snort in there." When Rin looks back at him again, he finds him smiling gently. "Don't worry about it." 

 

 

_Cute_. The response in general had done little to dissolve his blush, and that word choice certainly didn't help. 

 

 

Furthermore, now that he'd made sense of his surroundings and situation, Rin could finally clearly comprehend the person that was sitting before him.Looking at him, _really_ looking at him up close for the first time, smiling as he was, Rin is suddenly struck by just how unreasonably  _handsome_  this boy was. Terribly, unbelievable, irresponsibly, unfairly hot. He'd never seen such a good looking guy in his entire life probably, with his strong jawline and thick brows and messy brown hair and -- these _eyes_ that looked like someone had plucked the very color of salt water waves and dropped them straight into his irises. This was the boy that had been singing him to sleep for the last few weeks. Rin is suddenly too accutely aware of himself right now, and the heat on his face blooms further still, crawling down and blossoming across his neckline. 

 

 

When Rin doesn't respond, the boy continues. 

 

 

"Honestly, you looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake you." He shrugs. "Not the most comfortable place to spend the night, though. Which brings me back to my first question -- " He meets Rin's gaze with a piercing stare. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" 

 

 

Rin had yet to come up with a good excuse yet, a feat all the more difficult when someone as good-looking as this rendered him slightly less capable of formulating complete thoughts. He opens and closes his mouth twice before narrowing his eyes and snapping, "what, you _own_ the stairwell? Just because you're here every night at some godawful hour of the morning. Why not explain  _that_  first, hm?" 

 

 

It takes him witnessing the boy's eyebrows shoot up behind his bangs for Rin to realize what he just said. He's about to try and take it back when he catches the boy's face suddenly relax, watches a knowing smirk slide onto his lips, and then he knows he's doomed. 

 

 

"Ah, and how would you know  _that_?" 

 

 

"I…! You -- I just -- you're so -- " 

 

 

"I'm so what?" 

 

 

Was Rin imagining things or was he leaning just the tiniest bit closer? 

 

 

That teasing little grin he wore was starting to look more punchable by the second. 

 

 

"Loud, for one thing!" Rin stammers, trying desperately to save face. "I bet the whole hall can hear you!" 

 

 

"And yet you're the only one sneaking in to listen to me play." 

 

 

"I  _wasn't_ ," Rin insists, but the words don't sound convincing even to him. He avoids eye contact and instead starts toying with a loose string on his sweatpants. 

 

 

The boy says nothing for awhile and then sighs. 

 

 

"I was bored. Thought I'd borrow my roommate's guitar and teach myself. Picked an hour and a space where I didn't think I would embarrass myself or disrupt anyone. I have afternoon classes so being up this late isn't a big deal. Somehow it became a nightly thing." 

 

 

In the corner of his eyes, Rin watches him shrug. 

 

 

"Not much to it." 

 

 

The boy moves, and when Rin sneaks a glance at him, he finds him leaning forward, arms balanced on the steps between them, trying to peek up at Rin under his bangs. 

 

 

"That a satisfactory answer to your question?" 

 

 

Rin says nothing, blinks away, hugs his legs closer to himself, and then the boy actually heaves himself up one more step, now only one lower than Rin. 

 

 

"So? You gonna tell me why I found you in here?" He balances his cheek in his hand while still keeping his gaze trained on Rin. "A bit rude to eavesdrop on a guy's privacy and not even explain yourself." 

 

 

"I didn't mean to," Rin mumbles after a drawn out silence, and he can feel the boy practically perk up at the sound of him speak. "It was an accident. I -- I've been having a hard time sleeping. Nerves or stress something, I don't know. I found you here one one night -- " Rin wouldn't say how long ago that was. He could reveal that at a later date -- "That was the first time I was able to sleep soundly in a week. After a few nights it became clear that this was the only way I was going to be able to sleep so -- so I kept coming back." 

 

 

"Hm," the boy murmurs thoughtfully after a moment, and there's a smile in his tone. "That bad, huh? Be gentle on me, I'm a beginner." 

 

 

"No, not like that!" Rin says sharply, whipping around to narrow his eyes at him. "You sound -- " 

 

 

_Beautiful_ , is what he means to say, but he can't. Won't. He's suddenly bashful, embarrassed to be so honest all of a sudden, and his voice lowers to just above a whisper as ears grow warm and he glances away again.  

 

 

"…good. You sound really good. Your voices makes me feel…calm." He rubs at his neck. "It's stupid. I might be addicted to how nice your voice makes me feel and it's stupid." 

 

 

When the boy says nothing right away, Rin looks at him, finds his eyes drawn to the floor, his gaze far away, soft smile still lingering on his lips. Seconds pass before he breaths out a small laugh, then blinks up at Rin. 

 

 

"Well. That's much more flattering." 

 

 

Rin snorts, returning a crooked little grin in response. "Sorry for being a creep." 

 

 

The boy shakes his head. "No, it's fine. Glad I could help. He leans his cheek against his knuckle now, studies Rin in a way that makes Rin squirm self-consciously under his heavy gaze. They lapse into silence again, and Rin is about to say something, anything to feel less awkward, when the boy speaks first. 

 

 

"Since I've just woken you from what looked like quite the nap, I assume this is where you take your leave?" 

 

 

"No!" Rin blurts quickly, because the mere thought of leaving now is immediately dreadful to him, but he feels silly almost instantly and tries to backpedal. "I mean, if you really want me to go I can but --" 

 

 

He rubs at his arm and winces. He doesn't want to beg, feels pathetic doing so, but he's desperate. 

 

 

"... _please_. I won't say or do anything." 

 

 

The boy blinks in surprise. "Really? I don't mind if you stay, you just look exhausted." 

 

 

Rin shakes his head. "Not enough, anyway." 

 

 

The boy considers his response, then nods once. 

 

 

"Alright. A bit longer then." He suddenly heaves himself up by his hands, moving to stand and retrieve his guitar from the flight of steps below. He returns with the neck of the instrument clasped in one fist, then settles down on the same step as Rin, right beside him. "I'll play for you a little bit more, but on one condition." He gently nudges Rin with his elbow. "Don't lean against the wall. That's got to be uncomfortable. Use my arm." 

 

 

Rin frowns, staring at the aforementioned spot as the boy raises his eyebrows inquisitively. He looks so calm and unperturbed to make such demands like this, as if the two weren't complete strangers and it was normal for them to be so touchy feely right away. Rin almost opens his mouth to protest, but the boy has already began strumming a loose string of notes, has already began to hum gently under his breath, and Rin gives up on denying him. He slides down to lean against the step he's sitting on, pressing his arm up against the boy beside him. He hesitates before going any further than that, but as the boy begins to croon lyrics in that sweet, gentle voice of his, so much closer than it had ever been before, Rin can't help but droop his head to loll onto his shoulder. 

 

 

It's comfortable there, Rin has to admit, cushioned by the boy's thick forearm and the soft material of his sweater. He feels the boy stiffen next to him for a fraction of a second as contact is made, hears his fingers fumble over the guitar strings, hears him stutter over whatever long note he'd been in the midst of holding. The moment passes quickly though, as if it'd never happened, and he presses on, singing softly to Rin in a voice hardly above a whisper, as if the song is meant for him alone to hear. Rin's eyes glaze over where they watch the boy's fingers dance along the guitar strings, but he soon feels his eyelids grow heavy, allows them to flutter and eventually slide shut as he sits there listening. 

 

 

He's lulled deeper into semi-conscious, only barely registering sound, as if it's far, far away from him, and the two sit like that for a long time, with the boy continuing to play and Rin dozing off on his arm. Rin mumbles at one point, half his mouth buried against the material of the boy's sweater, and the boy has to strain to hear him. 

 

 

"Don't stare," Rin scolds, his voice heavy and laden with fatigue. 

 

 

"Hm?" 

 

 

"Stop staring at me." 

 

 

The twang of guitar strings falter a bit. He feels the boy fidget against him before chuckling low in his throat. 

 

 

"What makes you think -- " 

 

 

Rin had felt his eyes on him. That had been enough to convince him, but that wasn't all. 

 

 

"You stopped singing," Rin mutters. "Long ago. And your playing got sloppy." 

 

 

A pause, and then, in a tone that very loudly proclaims the fond smile he was likely wearing, the boy mumbles, "caught red-handed," more to himself than to Rin. 

 

 

"I apologize," he says much louder, his fingers playing with slightly more vigor than moments ago. 

 

 

"Just keep going." 

 

 

He laughs. "Demanding." 

 

 

Rin's only response is to dig the crown of his head against his shoulder and nudge insistently. The boy only laughs harder. 

 

 

As the singing resumes, Rin feels himself slipping again. He's very nearly gone entirely, his vision dark as sleep consumes him, when he's startled awake again by an another abrupt interruption in the flow of melody. 

 

 

"Wow, look at you. Out like a light. Amazing. 

 

 

Rin can't even bring himself to use words, tired as he is, only nudges his head more vigorously and makes a whiny distressed little noise. 

 

 

"Yes, yes." 

 

 

To further placate him, the strumming continues, the boy's fingers plucking along the strings to produce the melody of a child'd lullaby, which Rin is too far gone to notice is a potentially mocking gesture. The singing doesn't start up right away, though Rin is too close to the edge for it to matter at this point. 

 

 

The boy speaks again. 

 

 

"May I have your number." 

 

 

Rin can only vaguely process the implication of some of those words. 

 

 

"Mm?" 

 

 

"I'd like to call you sometime. If you're okay with that." 

 

 

Perhaps a more alert Rin might have asked more questions, might have blushed furiously and berated him for being so forward. But as far as Rin is concerned right now, this request was the one thing standing between him and the boy's continued singing, and needed to be dealt with. He's too tired to think any more logically than that, too desperate to care otherwise. 

 

 

The digits murmur out automatically, so deeply imbedded in his memory that he doesn't need to focus too closely on what he's saying. 

 

 

Then the playing stops altogether and Rin is ten seconds away from biting the arm he's leaning on. He instead lets out an angry whine, and the boy laughs again. 

 

 

"I'm just entering it in my cell. Be patient." 

 

 

The pause is quick, a blink really before his hands fly back and pluck at the guitar strings. He plays something familiar to Rin, one of the songs Rin remembers from his first encounter at the stairwell, and the memories of that night flood back to him. 

 

 

The boy mutters out a small thank you, the words melting away into that soft whispery singing again. Rin is weak enough now that only seconds of this are necessary before he's lulled to a deep sleep, completely gone, so much so that the next time he's shaken back to consciousness, he feels ten times more annoyed than he had at any other interruption. He shoots up where he's sitting, groaning in agony and feeling like he wants to hit something. 

 

 

"Sorry," the boy is quick to say, staring at what is likely a murderous glare in Rin's eye. "It's almost five. The sun will be up soon." 

 

 

Rin is still somewhat annoyed, but he tempers the feeling and nods groggily. The other boy gets up first, slinging the guitar around so it's upside down and resting on his back. Rin starts to follow, but when he glances up, he sees a hand in his face. His eyes follow it back up its arm, trailing it back to the boy's face where he offers him a smile both warm and dizzying. Rin only allots himself to stare for a second longer before feeling heat on his face as he glances away. He slips his fingers into the other boy's awaiting palm and allows himself to be heaved to his feet. 

 

 

Once Rin is standing, the boy does not let go and neither does Rin. 

 

 

"Floor?" 

 

 

"Third," Rin mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. The place where they touch is sending warmth like electricity shooting up his arms, and he's too acutely aware of it. 

 

 

The boy nods. "Mine as well." 

 

 

Then they're moving, Rin allowing himself to be tugged along down the flight of stairs until they get to the third floor landing and the boy pushes the door open. The grip of their hands slacken, until just their fingers are loosely intertwined. It's less contact, but somehow strangely more intimate, and Rin can't bring himself to say a word the entire way, not until he sees his room and mutters softly. 

 

 

"Here." 

 

 

They stop, and it's only now that the boy releases him. He waits while Rin walks around him, watches as Rin unlocks his door but hesitates to open it, keeping his hand grasped around the handle without turning it. After a moment, Rin turns around, crowding his back against the door and leveling his gaze with the other boy. 

 

 

When had he gotten so much closer? 

 

 

"Thanks," Rin says, forcing himself to make eye contact and not look away again. 

 

 

"Any time." 

 

 

He's staring at Rin like -- Rin can't place the look, but there's something intense about it, the way his eyes roam across his face, the way he smiles, something about it that makes Rin feel uncharacteristically shy. He feels at a loss for words, awkward, in a way he was not familiar with, and he wants to say something bold, to turn the situation around, and then the boy is moving, his hand hovering between them. Rin's eyes follow it, and he swallows hard as it travels closer. 

 

 

With just the tip of his index finger, the boy flicks away a loose strand of hair hanging just beyond Rin's eyes. 

 

 

"Have a good night, Sleeping Beauty," the boy says, smiling and nodding before slipping his hands in his pockets and turning to stroll down the hall. 

 

 

Rin nearly falls backwards through his dorm room door. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As expected, Rin wakes up to his alarm much later that morning, groggy and painfully exhausted. His sleep had been interrupted too many times over the course of the night to hope for anything otherwise. He's peeved at first, but then he remembers all of that, replays his memories of his encounter from the night before, and he forgets how grouchy he feels almost instantly. 

 

 

His mind lingers on the boy from the stairwell in a way that's unique from how it had before. Now that they've both been made aware of one another, some part of him is half-convinced he might run into him in the daylight hours, outside his room where he'd left him before, in the hall, in the bathroom, in the stairwell where they had met. When no chance rendezvous happens in any of those places over the course of his morning, he has to remind himself that the boy is likely sleeping right now, that he'd stayed up just as late as Rin and had no reason to be out and about when he didn't have classes until later that afternoon. 

 

 

Rin is envious. 

 

 

He just barely survives the rest of the day, floating through most of it on the verge of collapsing and knocking out any second. He'd never been so glad to see his bed after returning home later that evening after a swim practice he had to consciously stay alert throughout, but he forces himself to go shower before crawling under his covers and passing out. 

 

 

One record-breakingly speedy shower later, he retires back to his room with dripping hair and warm skin. His roommate is already asleep by the time he makes it back in, and Rin has to use every ounce of restraint not to throw himself back against the bottom bunk. 

 

 

Instead, he gently draws his bedspread aside and hoists himself gingerly onto his mattress, doing all he can to keep the bed frame from jostling. He situates himself snug beneath the covers, folding an arm behind his head and gazing up at the bottom of his roommate's bed. He wonders briefly how long this fatigue will last him today, whether he'd have to resort to his stairwell friend one more night. Things were different now that they'd made contact, and he doesn't know if it's right for him to go back there again after having made his presence known. 

 

 

He sighs and slides his eyes shut. He decides to just cross the bridge whenever he got to it. 

 

 

Probably not more than five minutes pass before he feels it: a series of long drawn-out strings of vibrations buzzing beneath his pillow. His eyes snap open in surprise before he digs a hand down there and retrieves his phone. A number he does not recognize displays on the screen. He frowns, hesitating before accepting the call and placing it against his ear. 

 

 

"…hello?" he says in a voice just above a whisper, curling onto his side to further muffle the sound of his voice against the wall. 

 

 

"Hey." 

 

 

The sound sends a jolt down his spine. 

 

 

"This is Sousuke," the voice continues, soft and warm and soothing against Rin's ear drums. He pauses briefly, and then: "Uh, guy from the stairwell. We met last night." 

 

 

_No shit_ , Rin almost blurts. 

 

 

Thankful his face could not be seen right now, Rin takes a moment to compose himself before whispering again. 

 

 

"How did you get this number." 

 

 

"I asked you for it," the boy -- Sousuke, he had a name now -- murmurs matter-of-factly through the speaker. 

 

 

At the mention of it, Rin remembers exactly when this happened, and he snorts derisively. "Took advantage of me in a weakened state, more like it." 

 

 

"I apologize," Sousuke says. Rin can hear the smirk in his tone. "It wasn't for any nefarious purposes, I can assure you." There's a pause again, and then, in a gentler tone: "are you in bed?" 

 

 

"See, you say this wasn't for nefarious purposes but now this sounds like the beginning of some really bad phone sex." 

 

 

Sousuke laughs and Rin can hear the reverberations of the sound loud and clear in his ear. It's  _glorious_. 

 

 

"No, no. I ask because, well -- " 

 

 

Rin hears the sudden twang of guitar strings in his ears, hears the sound of strumming echoing in the hollowed innards of the stairwell. He understands almost immediately. 

 

 

"I figured it'd be easier this way," Sousuke continues. "You don't have to make the trek back and forth down the hall. When you fall asleep, you're already in bed." 

 

 

Rin is startled by the gesture, is so moved that he can't find the words to respond, and he's overwhelmed enough by it all that he almost misses it when Sousuke asks in a manner that sounds distinctly  _shy_ , "…is this okay?" 

 

 

"I…" Rin begins, having trouble expressing just what this means to him to someone he barely knows. He swallows his words, clears his throat, and then, with false bravado, mutters through a smirk, "trying to get rid of me, then?" 

 

 

When Sousuke laughs this time, it's a breathy, humorless thing. 

 

 

"If anything, it'd be selfish of me to want you to stay." 

 

 

Rin's breath hitches in his throat in a way he hopes isn't noticeable. He hears his roommate stir above him, and in a quiet voice close to his phone's speaker, his lips move just enough to speak the words. 

 

 

"That's...that's kind of you." 

 

 

"It's nothing. I hope this helps."  

 

 

>The strumming picks up, turns into a melody, and then Sousuke is singing. The phone makes things interesting; nothing could compare to a live performance, to the physicality of having the sound surround his entire being and swallow him whole, but like this, the twang of the guitar and the reverberations of his voice were so close to him, it felt private, felt like a secret just for him, like Sousuke was right next to him and whispering the words right to him, mouthing them against the shell of his ear. 

 

 

Rin shivers at the sensation, feels his body melt the longer he lays there listening. His hand slackens its grip ever so slightly where he holds the phone against himself, and he can hear his own breathing pick up as his eyes flutter closed. 

 

 

"Is this fine?" Sousuke asks after a song or two and Rin sighs back, sounding so blissed out that Sousuke laughs a small, nervous laugh into the phone. 

 

 

Despite the noise, what Rin ends up murmuring is, "it's not the same." 

 

 

"I know, I know. But this is the best I can do. Can't exactly sit by you and play for you in your room, now can I?" 

 

 

"You could," Rin mumbles in a weary voice, his inhibitions long gone. "When my roommate is out of town. You could stay the night." 

 

 

Sousuke doesn't respond right away, and Rin can barely register the sound of guitar strings stuttering, playing a sudden wrong note that Sousuke quickly tries to recover from. Rin wishes he could see his face. 

 

 

"Of course," Sousuke finally says, the softness of a smile loud in his tone. "I'd like that." His strumming picks up again where his singing does not, but Rin is so close to the brink of passing out that he doesn't mind. A few more seconds of this goes by before Sousuke, seemingly deep in thought, speaks again. 

 

 

"Hey." 

 

 

Rin grunts a sleepy noncommittal noise of acknowledgement. 

 

 

"I just realized that I don't even know your name yet." 

 

 

"Rin." 

 

 

"…Rin," Sousuke breathes, saying it like he's tasting it, savoring it. Rin is exhausted, is on the verge of sleep, but he's still conscious enough to feel a warmth spread down the length of his whole body just from hearing his name said like that in the same voice that had haunted him for a fortnight.  

 

 

"Rin," Sousuke says again, softer, more reverently than before. Rin wants to tell him to stop, that he's already embarrassed enough, but then he says his name a third time, 

 

 

"Rin?" 

 

 

a bit more like a question, like a request, like he's asking for attention. 

 

 

"Mm." 

 

 

"Have breakfast with me tomorrow?" 

 

 

Rin is quiet. Sousuke waits. 

 

 

"…mmhm." 

 

 

Sousuke laughs against his ear again and Rin thinks he might never tire of the way the vibrations of his voice feel this close to his skin. 

 

 

"I hope you don't change your mind in the morning." 

 

 

"Won't." 

 

 

The moment settles, and Sousuke continues to sing again, lingering on the line until he hears Rin's breathing evening out on his phone's speaker. He sounds farther away, likely having dropped the phone on the bed somewhere near his face. 

 

 

"Good night," Sousuke mumbles to his sleeping audience. "Rin." 

 

 

He ends the call.


End file.
